Page 2034 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 25 October 1989
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I suggest that you have adopted the former path. It is an improper path. It ill behoves a responsible government to judge such an important issue because it is Mr Stevenson, whatever his alleged agenda is, who has moved it. That is wrong. You may think that you will score points out of this, that tomorrow's paper will write up the Rally as supporting Stevenson. Well, that is a great point, but the fact of the matter is, Deputy Chief Minister, that one of the great elements of being an independently-minded person and an independently-minded group is that you are willing to stand up and allow yourself to be painted unfavourably for a principle. That is an issue you do not clearly understand, Mr Deputy Chief Minister. When you know about principles we will be willing to hear from you. The best thing that you know about is interest, of course.
The fact of the matter is further that we have a legislative drafting officer that has been unable to draft a Bill for Mr Stevenson to put forward. To explain the motion, he has put a motion on before we debate the Bill to see whether the Chief Minister will take note of the Assembly's views and determine how she will react in good time to the moving of any amendments to that Bill.
As to the effect of this motion, my colleague Mr Kaine mentioned that it was unnecessary. Well, of course it is necessary until the LA(MS) Bill is passed, if it is passed. After the Bill is passed, the motion no longer has relevance and there is no guarantee that funds can be transferred from one vote to another. Mr Kaine's advice is correct for the time being, but in the form in which the LA(MS) Bill is likely to be passed, if it is passed, it would mean that Mr Stevenson is left alone, and our colleague Mr Moore will also suffer the same disadvantage in being unable to employ consultants, if he wishes to.
The Rally has no perceived support for any of the alleged programs that the Deputy Chief Minister here thinks that Mr Stevenson has. If he has evidence of that, he should put it up. Any matters that have been - - -
Mr Whalan: Tell us about those South Australian lawyers, Bernie.
MR COLLAERY: Any matters put forward in relation to issues of this nature in this Assembly have always been evidenced by the Rally. It is a question of the level of evidence and, as the Deputy Chief Minister knows, when you are looking for issues, often you have to start inch by inch, shred by shred, with the evidence. At the beginning, it is not persuasive, but we will see.
Mr Whalan: Tell us about those South Australian lawyers, Bernie.
MR COLLAERY: The South Australian lawyers the Deputy Chief Minister refers to I have never heard of. Perhaps the
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